Yeah, I've eaten raw pig skin with fat dripping off

Greetings from the lesser motherland! I sometimes wonder how I manage to get myself into precarious situations; I must have a knack for it. Whenever I think I am figuring out Moldova, I get a curveball to the face as a wake-up call, but in a good way. I’m learning how to take things more in stride, and if you could shadow me from day-to-day I think you would be quite shocked at, quite frankly, all the weird shit that I get myself into. I want to highlight my week for you with some of the more memorable moments.

I was walking up to my apartment on 4th floor the other day and was whistling a catchy tune that was stuck in my head. I passed one of my neighbors in the hallway, a sweet old baba that always gives me a toothlessly grin every time we greet, except for this time when I got chewed out. I didn’t catch most of the tirade she was yelling at me, but I got enough of the gist to figure out that my whistling was going to make everyone’s money fly out the window. Oh Russia, thank you for your superstitions, life wouldn’t be the same without them.

More stories of babas: I spent some time with my babusca and her friends several days ago shelling walnuts to sell in the market. While I wasn’t shucking, they were force feeding me a big bowl of warm brinza (homemade goat cheese, definitely not the same as feta), and for some odd reason it made me miss my own grandmother, as well as stain my hands brown for the week (from the nuts). I’ve tried everything from Gojo to gasoline to get the stain off (FYI, always take precaution when a drunk man tells you “I think this might work….”), no dice.

I was at work late last night trying to arrange some traveling plans, because for the time being it is the only place I can get internet. I’ve tried to get the internet every day for the past month, but everyday is the same and I have formed the same distain for Orange, the telephone company that sells the internet here, as I have for AT&T. Surprise, surprise, AT&T owns Orange. Bastards. That company will haunt me for the rest of my life. Sorry for that sidetrack, I was going somewhere with this story. After locking up, and bundling up to sprint home in the freezing rain, I was cornered by the janitor. I ended up drinking tea in the janitor’s closet for half an hour listening to him talk about how much he hates Romanians, and that I insulted him when I told him that I am studying the Romanian language. After listening to his sound argument about how they have different cultures, with different histories (this can be debated), and that from here on out I should only refer to the language as Moldovaneasca, I made the observation that Americans speak English, not American (this can also be debated if you happen to be in Texas). In my eyes, this is a relevant analogy, but this dude was having none of it, and our conversation came to an end soon after.

I often run into huge packs of turkeys wandering around the village. I really need to start carrying my camera around with me, because this occurrence, although frequent, always cracks me up. For some odd reason though, I am yet to eat turkey meat here in Moldova. Well, except for one time when I had a turkey club at Sky Towers in Chisinau, a ridiculously nice shopping/business center, but I don’t count that as real Moldova.

I’ve been afraid of the postal workers in my village since I got here. Getting yelled at in Russian from a heavyset woman with hairy, tumor-sized mole on her face is extremely intimidating. I had to go to the post office to buy an envelope, and when she asked where it was being sent, my partner said America. She responded “Seriously???” and of course my partner introduced me as his American. She started laughing and said that she yells Russian at me because she thought I Ukrainian. Whatever that means.

I was eating at the same little restaurant everyday for lunch, and because of my limited Romanian, and their lack of a menu, I ordered the same meal everyday: half a bowl of borst, mashed peas with a small ground meat sausage. After a month of the same lunchtime meal, I decided to venture out and try a new dish. I tried ordering chicken with rice, and received mashed peas and sausage. The next day, I tried fish and mashed potatoes, and got mashed peas with sausage. Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, and I take my business to another cantina. I hope they miss my dollar-a-day business.

I started going to a new eatery for lunch. For a whooping dollar-twenty I can get my mashed peas with sausage, half a bowl of borst, and a small salad. I skip ordering the borst now (it seems like a summertime meal after eating a steaming bowl everyday for lunch during PST) and just go with the mashed peas and salad. It was a really cold day yesterday, and I decided to change it up and just get a big bowl of borst for lunch. Not only did I get my borst, but they also brought me my mashed peas and sausage. I decided to make a PBJ for lunch today instead of trying my luck and probably ending up with the same meal that I probably didn’t order.

On a more serious note, the Day of the City in Chisinau was two days ago. Every village, town, and city here has hram, which is from what I gather, similar to the town’s birthday, although not really. Hram is a pretty big deal with concerts, speeches, fireworks, and the whole shebang. This year, some yahoo decided to bring a grenade to the celebration and detonate it during one of the concerts, injuring 30 people. I’m not really sure what to make of this seeing that I was just in Chisinau for a large celebration a mere five days ago.

You ask for a dozen eggs here, and you will receive ten, not twelve.

I saw a “riot” in Chisinau several weeks ago. The city raised the prices of transportation without raising the rates for pensioners (whom are forced into retirement at a certain age and receive next to nothing to live on) and the riot consisted of a couple hundred old timers chanting in front of the mayor’s office. Unofficially, I can see their point because trolley buses marked up their prices 100%, which is pretty absurd.

Today I was called into the governmental building for a meeting about a grant project. That somehow manifested into me giving a presentation to 30 people about business, the American economy, and access to credit. After fifteen minutes I exhausted my Romanian, but was then told that I had the rest of the hour to talk. Good times, I am actually getting quite good at these impromptu “Let’s put this guy on the hot seat in front of a large audience and get him to speak in our language about a subject that is quite difficult to talk about even in his native tongue.” I actually knocked this one out of the park today, if you were gauging from the wow factor, because I tried to convey the importance of debt in business growth and economies to extremely debt-averse people. They probably think credit cards were invented by the devil, but hey who wouldn’t when all bank loans are attached with 30% interest rates.

Alright, so that about does it. I’m off to Milestii Mici for two weeks for more language and technical training. I found out three shocking pieces of news today, the first being that I will be co-writing and translating a 60-70 page grant for economic development in my village that is due 12 days from now, and so far only 7 pages have been written, in Romanian- it must be submitted in English. So not only will I be spending most of my days sitting through language classes that make my brain feel like it’s about to explode, but I will be working while everyone else gets to catch up and hang out. Second little gem of info I received today is that I will no longer be staying with my original host family from this summer. I wasn’t given a reason, and I am pretty upset over this. I’ll hopefully get a bed over the soba, because it is getting quite cold here. And the best for last, tomorrow morning I’m headed out to my host aunt’s house to help her son slaughter a pig. After that we have to chop it up and conserve it for the winter. Hopefully we will get some shashlik tomorrow. I’m on the fence about bringing my camera. TBD.

No new posts will be up until after I finish this grant, so enjoy and please comment at the end of each of these entries. I’m getting tired of reading “0 Comments” every time I log on. Adios amigos.